The Biden Administration’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is being sued by an ethics watchdog for reportedly withholding key information on the baby formula shortage.
According to a complaint, the FTC ignored an August FOIA request from The Functional Government Initiative for records on its investigation into the shortage that affected families all over the country.
“FGI anticipates that officials and staff at FTC discussed and participated in making and implementing decisions about the investigation into the infant formula crisis… the public does not have an ability to easily evaluate the decision-making surrounding FTC’s investigation,” according to the lawsuit.
In May, the director of the National Economic Council Brian Deese admitted that the Biden Administration knew about a possible baby formula shortage months before in happened.
However, in a September report, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) blamed the shortage on a manufacturing problem at the Abbott Nutrition plant in Michigan.
Earlier this week, it was reported that one third of households are still struggling to get baby formula nearly a year after the crisis began.
According to the Census Bureau’s House hold Pulse survey, 20 percent of families are still struggling to find a week’s worth of formula.
Roughly 18 percent of powdered formula was out of stock in September, which is down from a 30 percent high in July.
Market research firm IRI says that typical out-of-stock rates for food is about 5 percent and that anything above 10 percent is problematic.
The Biden Administration did not do a single thing for four months after a whistleblower sent a report to the FDA alleging unsafe and unsanitary working conditions at the Michigan facility.
It wasn’t until February 2022 that the FDA initiated a shut down of the plant, causing a nationwide panic and shortage of formula.
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